Page 172 of Vicious Is My Throne

I didn’t know who’d constructed his cell. The witches. The Fae. The Old Gods themselves. It hardly mattered, because all this time he’d been kept locked up and powerless. Bex’s theory? The Oracle couldn’t kill him because their magics were too intertwined, so he just…existed here.

Trapped by these markings in the floor.

I firmed my grip on my stone, the smooth surface heating against my palm, and I wasn’t prepared for the cataclysm of our magic tangling together.

Our stones didn’t ignite.

They exploded.

A web of pure light illuminated the inside of the cave and surrounded Corvus. Even with the four of us, he paused, that dark aura flaring within our glowing dome. A crack rent the air, then a lash of black shadow speared straight toward Zor, a fatal blow contained within a spear of pure power that would tear my best friend in half. But when darkness met light…

Corvus’s shadows were severed.

And right in front of him, like a beacon on the floor, glowed a tree of pure silver.

I didn’t question how an ancient witch symbol made its way into a cave of the Old Gods, didn’t question how fate worked, not when it seemed, for once, to be working in our favor.

Anaria. You’re up, princess. I blew out a shaking breath because all I really wanted to do was grab her and leave. Fly her to the other side of the world where she could never be found.

Kick his arse, Tavion added, his grin brilliant from halfway across the cave.

We’ll be waiting over here in case you need us.

73

ANARIA

Icouldn’t stop shaking as I stepped out of the darkness into the cave bathed in silvery light.

Corvus was huge.

Two, maybe three times as big as the last time I was here, and like before, the sight paralyzed me.

I could hardly breathe.

Could barely think.

He had no face, but somewhere deep within that black rotting carcass, he watched with ancient, amused cruelty, as if he knew we didn’t have a fucking clue what I was doing.

Oh, we’d spent months gathering all the right pieces—magic, the weapon, that stupid poem—but had no idea how anything worked.

We were a bunch of children stumbling around in the darkness, and this hideous creature knew it.

He peered out at me from his twisted, wrecked body. “I’ve been looking for you, Princess. Chasing you from one end of this realm to the other. Yet you came straight to me like a dog to a bone.”

Move, Anaria. Raz’s voice echoed in my head, breaking through the chaos of doubts. Walk to your symbol and draw the weapon. Throw the sword if you have to, two-handed, like we practiced.

The tree glowed in the center of the floor, my upper arm burning with a phantom echo of pain when I took that first step, my boots firm on the floor even though my legs felt like water.

Those handful of steps felt like a gallows march, my footsteps too slow yet too fast, Corvus looming over me like a wave of death about to slam down and crush me. I kept my eyes pinned on that silver tree glinting like the branches were filled with stars.

A fire can be snuffed out just as easily by too much fuel as by not enough. The Oracle’s worthless clue echoed inside my head as I took another step, dragging my eyes up Corvus’s twisted shell.

Power pulsed through me from the floor, gentle enough I barely noticed as I reached behind me and dragged the weapon out of the scabbard, my breath guttering in my lungs as I frantically recited the quote from Bexley’s book.

“No flame will halt the heartless fight, draped in eternal, starless night

No weapon forged by mortal hands will cleanse these blighted, ruined lands

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